Archive for the ‘School Issues’ Category

Seems like you can’t turn on the news anymore without seeing something about bullying, and more and more, it’s teenagers who not only bully, but advertise it on YouTube, Facebook or other social mediums. It’s bad enough they’re doing it, but they’re proud of it and want others to see it.

The Dr. Phil show today was about four teen girls who beat up a 12-year-old girl (who already had a shunt in her brain, which apparently at least two of the girls were aware of) and video’d it, then put on YouTube. I won’t get into any further details as I don’t want to get anything wrong (you can find it at Dr. Phil’s website) but I will say it was very disturbing to watch, and not just the video but the reactions/responses of others towards what the girls all did.

As a country, we’re aware — the Bully Project movie is playing and many schools hold anti-bullying campaigns. Commercials stress that you need to stop bullying people for their race, their lifestyle, their orientation, but I would love to see them include the disabled. I go back and forth about whether or not we should even focus on the “who” of bullying — no one should be bullied, but with the increase of suicides related to internet bullying, I am aware that we have a long way to go so I’m on the fence. However, bullying is bullying, and bullying is wrong, no matter who the recipient.

We were coming home from the beach yesterday and BB mentioned, out of the blue, how he felt he’d been bullied by a past teacher. It was an interesting comment and his choice of words inspired a long conversation about what bullying was and whether or not he had actually experienced it. We didn’t feel the situation was bullying, but given that bullying comes in all shapes and forms, is bullying in the eye of the receiver? If he felt bullied, was he?

In his case, his IEP was being ignored and some teachers were trying to get him to just stop the irritating behavior so as to get on with the rest of the class and day rather than trying to help him learn better behavior. One example: finding out why he was tapping his foot didn’t matter; instead, he was told to stop tapping and when it didn’t work, he was moved to a corner desk. Alone and singled out, still with the need to tap his foot as the sensory issue wasn’t addressed, and it turned into anxiety and upset. Another: a classmate was allowed to pick on him for his facial tic because “that’s what kids do.”

Was that bullying? Or just lack of education in how to handle it?

We’ve decided that it is unlikely BB will return to a regular public school, in the format that lives now. Instead, we’re going to be looking for something more form-fitting, perhaps a techology-geared magnet school or program. It’s not necessarily because of bullying, though it sure does play into the decision somewhat. BB will need to learn to deal with the bad behaviors in the world. He’ll need to learn to control his reaction and respond appropriately, and/or walk away. We wouldn’t be doing him right if we just pulled him away from it all and didn’t prepare him regardless; he’s going to be out in the world, be it now or next year or in seven years when he graduates, and he’ll run into other bad behaviors displayed by fellow college students or co-workers, or just people waiting in line with him at the bank.

Until he gets old enough to be more independent, we will continue to work with him. Last week, after the homeschool event situation, we gave him some tools on how to handle it if it recurs. “Please don’t touch me.” Talk to a teacher. Seek a safe adult. We want him to realize that even if someone else is being mean, it’s no excuse for him to respond in kind. He can’t control their behaviors, but he can control his own. He is also worthy of respect and doesn’t need to put up with bullying or meanness from anyone. He may be just a child, but children should be respected, too. Bullying sends the message that you’re not being respected, and no one needs to tolerate that.Parents need to model the behaviors they want their children to emulate, so we as adults need to think about it as we’re out in public. Do we honk our horns at slow cars? Do we berate an employee providing customer service to us when things don’t go as we want? Do we fight fair? Do we make fun of people? And to add a new level to it all — do we go to Facebook or Twitter to tell the world about all of our problems? Do we share so much online that our kids think it’s normal for them to as well? Do we bash our husband, our employer or whine about every little twinge or ache? It may not seem to relate but when kids see us use social media to seek attention or antagonize, it rubs off. How many times have our kids said “Well, Mary did it too…” Do we want them to say “But Mom did it too…”

I know it’s not as cut and dried as that, but you have to start somewhere. I don’t want any of my kids to ever be the victim of online harassment or attacks, but prevention is a multi-pronged approach, and even then, not a guarantee of success. It starts with our behaviors, and continues with us watching theirs, addressing things as they come up and listening to their concerns. BB showed me that we may not see something as bullying, but if they perceive it as bullying, it needs to be addressed. Maybe that means just us explaining to them that it’s not bullying, or maybe it’s a red flag that yes, we need to step in.

It’s sad that bullying is such a problem anymore, but one person at a time, we can decrease it. Bullying the disabled — or anyone — happens every single day. We worry about 1-in-88 having autism — and we should worry about it — but like autism, we don’t know the cause or cure for bullying yet and until we do, we need to tackle it before the numbers are even higher.

In a perfect world, our children would go without nothing. They’d get every treatment and/or service they need, and we’d not have to pay anymore for it than anyone else with a disability or medical concern, regardless of income. However, as we all know, treatment for autism is still considered ‘experimental’ in many forums, other than ABA, and services are most readily available for those with unlimited bank accounts. For the rest of us? We hope and pray that someone will provide something, anything, and we become the world’s biggest advocates in order to make that happen.

Being an advocate can make an introvert a public speaker. It can give a shy person who doesn’t like to talk to strangers an eloquent speaking ability. It will make a low-key, laidback “go with the flow” mom get on the phone each day and push, in a way she never has before, for answers, and she won’t settle for anything but the right kind of answer.

This is good, right? Well, yes — because if we don’t advocate for our kids, no one will. But, there is a reasonable limit and no matter how desperate we are, I think we need to realize when we’ve reached it.

Today in a group I belong to, someone asked what kind of help they can get on vacation: could they require the hotel to provide a chemical-free room? Could they require the hotel restaurant to provide a nut-free environment? Could they require the state to find a place to find services for their child while on vacation, as in speech and O.T.? And my favorite, could they require the state to provide respite so the parents could go out alone.

You could have heard a pin drop.

No one answered.

There was a couple of coughs and throat-clearing sounds, but no eye contact with the woman who asked the question. It was clearly a mix of “I am at a loss for words” and “I can’t speak for fear I’ll say something I can’t take back.”

In the end, a calm person spoke up and said “Good luck with that. You’re on vacation, something most of us would give our right arm to take, so if it was me, I’d probably be super-glad I could take vacation and sacrifice the week of services.”

Other responses popped in my head: “It’s vacation, no one’s making you take it, why should the state be liable for anything? If you don’t want to miss out, don’t go.” But I didn’t answer.

Somehow, the conversation quickly changed to “Vacation? Cool! Where are you going?” At first, I was relieved, ahh, re-direction, now she’s changed the subject, no one has to address it, and it was done so politely, she can’t take offense. Then as I thought more about it — and got irritated at her question — I realized that the goal of at least one other parent was to say exactly what I’d been thinking: vacation, an optional thing you don’t have to take, enjoy it, let your kid be a kid while you’re out, and if you don’t get a night out alone, oh well, it’s vacation!!

Then surprisingly, two moms started making suggestions — call this number, ask this place, etc. There was obvious discomfort that we’d gotten back to the topic. Some people were “mutter mutter, I wish I could afford a vacation,” which was totally off-topic, and others were “Why are we helping her with this when we’re talking about VACATION? We’ve got people here who can’t figure out how they’re going to get through the next day because their child is still in diapers at 14 and the self-injurious behaviors make it so they can’t leave the house to run to the store, much less go on vacation.”

I stayed quiet. I knew no good could come of my contribution then, but I’ll share it here because the more I think about it, the more I think I did a disservice by not speaking up. Sure, it may have been seen as “tsk tsk! She deserves a vacation like everyone else!” but come on, let’s be realistic — no one ‘deserves’ vacation. Yes, everyone deserves to be able to relax, but a vacation is indeed a luxury. The state is not required to jump through hoops to keep your child’s services at three days a week if you voluntarily choose to leave the state; nor are they required to provide you a babysitter so you can go out at night.

Before I had BB, I took vacations. We have three other children, and as BB is six years younger than the youngest of the sibs, we always had children along with us. We didn’t get a night out away from them — a hotel babysitter, IF available, was cost-prohibitive. Plus, we were already on vacation, did I really need to have that added luxury? Nah, I’ve got a lot of years ahead of me to come back and do things I can’ t do with kids along.

This is where I think our requests take a nasty turn. We are definitely in the right when we request things that keep autism services on par with the rest of the medical-needs community; however, when we want MORE than others get, when we see ourselves as more deserving or require things that make life easy instead of just being necessary, we are not only taking money from an already too-small pool, but we are becoming one of those parents, the kind that make people say mean things and it makes it harder for the reasonable requests to be granted.

Flashback to a couple of years ago, when I spoke about a friend of mine complaining that she had to take her son to school each morning. “I have to get dressed!” Wow, poor you. So she made a huge stink and got the local district to bus her child to school each morning to the school she insisted he go to, even though there were many schools closer. Not only was her son on a bus for 40 minutes, but she negotiated it that on days she decided to get dressed and drive him, she’d get paid for every mile. Wow. On one hand, kudos, you must be a heck of a negotiator and the school is a pushover; if they agreed to that, then it’s their problem. On the other hand though? Come on, you are responsible for some normal parenting things and if you choose to move so far away from the school, why is it the school’s problem?

Those are the parents that give others a bad name. I want to be seen as an advocate, not a ball-busting bitch. I want to come to the negotiation table with people who aren’t defensive just knowing they have to meet with yet another parent; I’ve had them tell me before, on our first meeting, “Thank you for being reasonable. We do the best we can, and while it’s not always enough, we appreciate that you’re not yelling at us.” It always amazes me, because I don’t leave that room until my son gets what he needs — but it’s about him, not me, and I think sometimes we forget that. Parents of kids with cancer, heart problems, CP, etc., they don’t get free babysitters, zero co-pays and no deductibles; they have to drive their kids and if they go on vacation, they choose it around appointments or they don’t go. Why are we any different?

“But my son has special needs!” It’s not a weapon, and it shouldn’t be used like one.

I opened up my blog page, thought about the title, and then realized, why am I thinking on this? I’m definitely over-thinking this. So I decided to cut to the chase: this entry is about school and autism. Voila, the name of the entry.

First, the disclaimer: I’m tired and lacking creativity.

I slept well last night. Went to bed at 11:30 after watching the two-hour finale of Masterchef (yay for Jennifer!) and I passed out as soon as the TV was off, but 5:30am comes early. My mornings consist of getting BB ready for school, signing in to work, working, taking him to school, and working until I pick him up. Then I work another 30-45 minutes or so. I’m used to that, but when you’re dealing with your school every single day, and dealing with your child venting about school the rest of the time, it’s tiring. It sucks your creativity like a Dyson picks up dog hair. Sorry, BB’s service lab sheds like you wouldn’t believe so it’s an analogy all too in-my-face.

Moving on…these last couple of weeks have been the proverbial rollercoaster. We have a great day and things look good. The next day blows big chunks and he doesn’t ever want to go again, once the anxiety-induced migraine goes away and he’s willing to talk as opposed to crying and yelling. Fun stuff.

IEPs are good things to have. Nice handy legal documents that explain how things should work and give people guidelines. But much like a restraining order and a persistent abusive ex, it’s only a piece of paper that totally depends on people to follow it.

One teacher/administrator who doesn’t feel the accommodations are right, doesn’t want to do the accommodations, or just has assumptions about your child and the diagnosis can blow the whole thing.

Long story short, that’s where we are right now. We’ve got a wonderful team around us, albeit a busy one, and we have one person in particular who gets BB. And one person who doesn’t…and doesn’t seem like she wants to.

BB is burned out. I’m burned out. Dh is burned out. We’re at the crossroads of: This is Your Last Chance to Make it Work Road and Homeschooling Highway. Not a place I wanted to be but then again, I never wanted to be a part of the autism club either.

BB is happy tonight. He is positive towards tomorrow, so I will be, too. It can be a hard thing to tell yourself: think positive, don’t let the last two weeks of hassles get you down, shrug it off and have faith. But I’m trying. Trying hard, and letting BB lead the way. He teaches me more than anyone I’ve ever known.

Sometimes, when things are good, we can go days without really thinking about it. The word “autism” doesn’t even enter my head on a level where I have to focus on it, because so many days, that’s just how BB is. I don’t see him as autistic or see his odd behaviors or problems as autism, it’s just BB. But some days, it hits you. Bam, the kick in the stomach that reminds you: my son has a disability.

Autism.

It hits you hard and you almost have to remind yourself to take a breath, because you hadn’t thought about it that way in a while. Maybe it’s just me – maybe I compartmentalize and some might say that’s a bad thing. Some might say “Well, how bad can he be if you are able to forget,” so let me clarify — it’s not that I forget, it’s just that I see him as his own person, just the way he is, and I’m so used to his eccentricities, his sensory problems, his OCD behaviors and the meltdowns that I don’t focus on him being a child with autism. I just see him as a child who needs my love and attention in some different ways.

Yesterday was one of those days. On the heels of last week, when BB refused to go into the school in the morning, and he was a stressed, anxiety-ridden little boy who visibly shook when we mentioned school over the weekend, I didn’t figure yesterday morning would go easily, but I also didn’t expect it to go like it did.

Long story as short as possible, we went to school, with the homework the assistant principal had given him, basically a list of all the things that bothered him, things he wanted to discuss and have fixed. It was a well-written list, big words, proper grammar and spelling, but it still wasn’t pretty. He was candid, almost brutal, in his explanation. He doesn’t like it when someone touches him unasked, so he didn’t hesitate to name names of those who didn’t abide by this rule. (But I have to say, if you have a child with autism in your class, you should also know enough to not just touch them unbidden, so I didn’t feel sorry for those whose names were listed. If you haven’t taken time to learn about autism, knowing you have a child with it in your class, you aren’t being fair to yourself or the student.)

BB handed the list to the AP, and turns to head back to the car. Uhm, no, baby, you have to go into the building. All heck broke loose from there. Reminding him, as quietly as possible, that he wants to be seen like everyone else, so falling to the ground and trying to run away will make him stand out didn’t work. Four staff/administrators later, we were still there. Cars had all gone, and this was when it was a blessing that I have no friends here and neither does he. (Small towns? Not always friendly to newcomers beyond the hello, how are you. And if you’re different? The stares and actual “wow, I’ve never seen someone like you before” comments abound. My daughter’s blue streaks in her hair for Autism Awareness month? Mouths would drop open.) Because of our lack of attachment to anyone here, we were just another group of people on the sidewalk thankfully.

However, when we were still there 45 minutes later, BB in the car after us having given up, my stomach was in knots. My left arm had no feeling, as I’d used it mostly to hold him to me rather than running away. The AP doesn’t believe in dragging children into class, nor do I. If he’s going to be miserable outside, what happens inside? Is it fair to him, and if it escalates, we put him into the position where he could get even more in trouble. So back to the car he went.

This afternoon, we have an emergency IEP. Plans for what to do to make him willing to at least go to school for a modified schedule, for social purposes mainly, will be formulated. We’ll be discussing things that will motivate him to go into school, even if it’s computer-based projects or helping someone out. Then we need to work on friends. How to get him to make friends without the adult intrusion he doesn’t want?

Then we get to discuss ABA and social skills services. We aren’t signing anything that doesn’t include both in writing. Now that they’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, they are aware that a lot goes on behind the surface. They realize that while he may look ‘normal’ quite often, there’s a whole new world in his brain. His thoughts and feelings aren’t obvious, but they matter, and we have to not only help him adapt, but we need to teach him to adapt, and make some adaptations for him as well. Medication is a consideration, but if the problem is mostly happening at school, I’m hesitant to biochemically change his behaviors and/or personality when there’s other options to approach first.

Think happy thoughts for us. Not only is our house not sold yet — four weeks and not one showing — which makes me discouraged and sad, being stuck in a place where we have no friends and don’t want to live anymore (for new readers, we’ve only lived here about 14 mths and we have no close family here either) but now our son is showing signs of major regression and I’m just seconds away from developing a tic again in my eye. It’s not about me, and I don’t want to make it about me, but we could really use a break. BB needs help, and he needs love and acceptance. We can shower him with love, but I can’t buy him the acceptance and the help relies on others.

I hate saying “my son has a disability” but yesterday’s issues really drove it home. Whatever else is going on in our life (such as planning a move that we’d hoped to still make this year) can’t be the focus. BB has to be the focus. Kind of a kick in the pants, and maybe we needed it.

It’s day 4, and we almost didn’t make it to school this morning. After yesterday’s headache, he was ‘off’ all night. Edgy, easily irritated and seemed unable to focus on one thing for too long. At bed time, we had a major meltdown on our hands. Apparently his service dog hasn’t slept well the last two nights and it’s keeping BB up at night. I knew about this, but I didn’t know it was to the point of near hysteria that he’d have a third night like this and keep BB up again. After 15 minutes of him yelling and crying, hitting himself and us having to stop him and try to talk him down, he decided to listen to some of our suggestions for keeping his dog happy at night, thereby allowing him to sleep.

It took a while, but with some furniture rearranging, we moved the carpet over to one side and angled BB’s bed so that the service doing, who we’ll call “C,” was only able to roam one side of the room, and with the carpet there, BB wouldn’t be able to hear his nails on the hardwood floor. C’s bed was over there, and BB could still be near him without the noise. We then watched Dragon Ball Z Kai together (not the world’s best show, but he loves it) and he went to sleep, 30 minutes later than normal, but it was barely dark out. He insists on being in bed no later than 8:30, some nights as early as 8:20, so I was worried this would upset his sleeping pattern but he seemed fine.

Fast forward to 6:15am, when I wake him for school, and I hear him moaning as I walk down the hall. He said he’d woken up about 30 minutes prior with a ‘super bad’ headache. I get him a pain reliever immediately, massage his head, offer him water, and do all I can to get him to be willing to go to school. That’s where I felt like a really bad mom, because I don’t want to leave my bed when I have a migraine, yet the schools out here have the world’s most ridiculous policy for attendance. It doesn’t conform with the state’s policy, so we’ve pushed it a bit as the state allows for 10 days of unexcused absences, and four that you have a doctor’s note for, which is fair — I really do believe kids need to get to school and it’s important to make rules — but what’s not fair is that our school starts threatening truancy at day four and makes you attend an attendance meeting. You quote disability laws and they state that we have to have a document on file. Uhm, I think the IEP and medical diagnosis of autism and migraines should suffice, yes? But no, we have to have a note each year on file and even then, they want to make sure we’re ‘being truthful’ and not taking advantage of that. So you end up taking your child to a doctor for a mild cold that’s given them a temp of 100, not enough for a doctor to do anything more than write a note that you were there and enough for you to pay the bill and expose your child and yourself to even worse illnesses.

I digress.

I finally got him up and moving this morning and got him out the door..a few minutes late and with him being oh so slow that it was really hard not pushing him to move faster. After all, tardies count against the 10! We have to weigh the balance between being a mom not making your sick child go somewhere that he’ll only be in pain, and the school hassling you. I partially think it’s the area — we’re ex-homeschoolers and we believe that while schools are important, they’re run by humans and parents have the utmost choice, and people locally tend to believe what school staff says without question. I also think that I’m just burned out on years of expectations that are unfair. He’s sick, he shouldn’t be at school where it’s only going to make him worse. If school is making him this anxious, it’s not up to me to just continuing to increase his medication, but to them to find out what they can do to decrease the anxiety.

So I sit and wait for them to call and give me an update. I’ve already spoken with the nurse first thing, but it’s up to the teacher to let him go to the office if his head hurts, and if she doesn’t let him..well, I’ll be there in the office first thing, but that won’t fix the day for him. For him, when he has a problem with something once, he’s put off from ever trying it again. Let’s just say that the day that It’s a Small World at Disneyland broke and we were ‘trapped’ for 15 minutes, five years ago, assured that we’ll never ride it again. I liked that ride.

For those of you dealing with anxiety, what do you do? BB’s headaches were far less frequent over the summer, in the environment without bright lights, too much noise and stress. Now that he’s back at school, we can see him getting stressed and anxious, and we feel the headaches are a side-effect. We want to try something to help — biomedical is the first goal, followed by medication but only if absolutely necessary. How do you handle autism and anxiety? Where do you see it cause the most problems?

It’s 8:19am. I haven’t received a call yet. I know it’s early, but I have hopes that his first day is problem-free. I dropped him off at 7:14, fifteen minutes before he has to be in there, but early enough for breakfast if he wants an extra snack before the day starts. He ate his normal homemade chocolate chip waffle before we left and usually eats the breakfast there at school too (which they deliver to every class for every student) but said he wasn’t hungry today for school breakfast, so I think there were some nerves.

BB likes to wear Mardi Gras beads. Everywhere. A few around his neck, a couple around his wrists, and sometimes, even around his ankles. (Two weeks ago at his ped appointment, another child saw him and laughed out loud. Mom looked, smiled, but said nothing to her boy who was obviously laughing at another child. Nice, eh?) Today he wore them again, minus the ones on his ankles. I hope his teachers leave him be and he’s not teased. He is his own person, and I love that he has his own style and is comfortable with himself; I just wish others were comfortable with his differences and learn to handle their responses better. I see the problem as being with them, not BB, and I wish teachers taught students more frequently to be glad for the variety in people, and to appreciate those unique qualities rather than mock them.

I have high hopes things will go well. He is in the gifted program, and that means a lot of changing classrooms. I took him in last week to see those rooms that were new, so he could transition better, but I also don’t know that the teachers were aware that he even had an IEP and that I was there solely to talk to him about him in detail, not so we could not have to attend Open House. (I hate Open Houses. There, I said it. Every parent wants to talk to the teacher, you all walk around the crowded room in tiny steps and the parents who know each other stand and talk, which means that it’s one more opportunity for us to be ignored as we know no one, and those that we do know don’t really have much of an interest in doing more — small town life is not easy to get involved with if you don’t have active family here or weren’t raised here.) The main reason we went to meet them was for him to have uninterrupted time to get to know his teacher(s) a bit, to scope out his location, to make a seat request if we weren’t happy with the existing one (because of his eyes and because of his space issues, and because some teachers find that isolating him makes their life easier) and to advise them of a few things that would make his and their life easier. So much for that, the ten minutes we got allowed basically no time for that, and didn’t even confirm for us that they’d seen he even has an IEP. For all we know, they aren’t even aware he has autism. The asst. principal used to handle this type of thing, as well as classroom assignment, but he was moved. Not sure if any ball was dropped, but time will tell. Until then, I don’t want to worry.

Yesterday, he decompressed from being gone all day Saturday at the birthday party. He had SO much fun and wasn’t a problem at all, and we’re thrilled. Onwards and upwards, right?

Barnacle Boy (who is still my Barnacle Boy, btw, even at ten — he wants to see me first thing in the morning, cuddle, be near me and runs up and kisses/hugs me sporadically) is obsessed with computer games. He writes code, scripts games and is planning on being a computer hacker for the government someday so he can help catch the bad guys. Computers are his thing, and he definitely has the aptitude..and the attitude, as he’s not so much for social skills in a lot of ways and he’s got a lot of interest in being self-employed as well as the creativity and ingenuity to invent amazing things. He’s fascinating to listen to, can have a wonderful (one-sided) conversation and he’s got such a sense of humor interlaced with the vocabulary of a well-bred adult. He’s also very routine-oriented and likes things a certain way, which makes showing our house as we sell very…interesting. But he’s going with the flow.

Anyway, BB has his routines, and they are to play computer games much of the day during the summer. With the heat index regularly over 100, it’s not horrible, because he can’t really play outside for more than a few minutes at a time, other than swimming, and he does a lot of that. (But we even have to be careful there, he had another bout of swimmer’s ear last month.) As summer goes on, he’s beating a lot of the games and tiring of some of the things the newer players do. I try to teach him that those players could be much younger than him, and that not everyone has the same level of skill but that’s a hard thing to teach. So what do I hear a lot?

Every mom’s nightmare: “Mom, I’m bored!”

I can do like I do with the rest of the kids and threaten him with chores, but that buys me only a couple of minutes. Other kids scatter like roaches in the light, but he stops for a couple of minutes, thinks, and then again says he’s bored. I have pulled out movies, made cookie dough for him to shape, bought art supplies, you name it…so what did I resort to today? Buying more online game subscriptions. Cancelling two others. It’s a revolving door. So I’m set until school starts in a couple of weeks, right? Ha. It took four hours before I heard “Sigh. I’m going to sign off for a bit, I’m tired of this game.”

Out comes $8 and his sister to take him to McD’s for shakes. Forty-five minutes, and $7.40 later, they are home. Shouldn’t $7.40 buy more than 45 minutes of non-boredom??

I am trying to get him into new things, but that’s a lot harder than it sounds. He’s got the world’s greatest treehouse, with a new sling chair installed, but it’s too hot. He’s got this awesome rip-rider..too hot. Wii? Played all the games. Board games? No, only Stratego..and then he kicks my butt. Every.Single.Time.

I love having him home for summer and I don’t really think it’s long enough, but maybe year-round school suits his needs. We’ve already found out his teacher, and next week, I need to meet with her so he can get a chance to be familiar with his class before the first day, and I can be sure she’s familiar with BB and his needs. It’s in the IEP, but you know how that goes.

Stay out of the heat and if you are below 75 when you go to sleep, hush…